Plan Your Trip Times Picks

A NEW HARRY'S AND MORE, IN VENICE

By R. W. APPLE Jr.

Published: September 9, 1984

For as long as most people can remember, Harry's Bar has been the outstanding restaurant in Venice, celebrated by Hemingway, recognized by Michelin with two stars, chosen as one of the 10 best in the country by several Italian guides and, most important, universally named by the finicky Venetians themselves as the only consistently reliable class joint in town.

But Arrigo Cipriani has been worrying lately. Like the restaurant, he was named by his father after an American benefactor who helped set up the business, and he has maintained its excellence despite all the temptations of celebrity; with Taillevent in Paris, it is one of the few superrestaurants in Europe that gives as warm a welcome to nobodies as to Somebodies. Yet in recent years Venetians, especially the younger ones who will be tomorrow's regulars, have been complaining that the prices are too high and that tables are too hard to get.

Me, I would pay whatever prices he cared to charge, if I had enough lire in my pocket, not only because I love the food but also because the Commendatore, as Arrigo's father was called, had the circumspection to name his specialties - the thinly sliced beef he called Carpaccio and the cocktail he christened the Bellini - after my two favorite Venetian painters and not after those parvenus Titian and Tintoretto. At any rate, Cipriani (whose family sold the hotel bearing their name some years ago) recently opened a zippy new place called Harry's Dolci. Inside of a week, it was jammed for every meal, mostly, to the delight of the boss, with smart young Venetians. (The menu at Harry's Bar is in three languages, but the one at Harry's Dolci is all in Italian.)

It is a single, woody room, with a few umbrella-topped tables outside, in one of the remoter parts of the city - at the western end of the island of Giudecca, between the church of Sant'Eufemia and the brooding, deserted Teutonic warehouse called the Molino Stucky. Just across the broad Giudecca Canal are anchored, most days, the sleek cruise ships that are calling at Venice, and the view down the canal is closed by the gleaming white bulk of San Giorgio Maggiore; Arrigo Cipriani smiles his double- breasted smile and tells you that ''Palladio was my exterior decorator.''

The food is simple and ultrafresh. There are antipasti (tiny spring peas, baby artichoke pie and chickpea and onion salad the day we were there), soups, panini (tiny sandwiches filled with Cipriani favorites such as Carpaccio, chicken salad and spectacular prosciutto). Ice creams and pastries, including a chocolate cake of deadly richness, are produced at a sparkling new Cipriani bakery just around the corner. There is a minimal kitchen staff, which makes it possible to hold prices down; a pitcher of Venegazzu, the excellent house red at both places, costs $29 at the Bar and $11 at the Dolci. Go Sunday noon if you can, but be sure to call for reservations first (041-24844 or 708337). The restaurant is closed Monday.

Aside from Cipriani's two places, the best food my wife and I have eaten on three recent trips to Venice has been in small, out-of-the- way trattorias suggested to me over the years by local friends. It is in them that you find the most authentic versions of the special local fish dishes, from codo di rospa (anglerfish tail) and triglia (red mullet) and spigola (bass) to granzeola (spider crab) and cigala (a kind of flat lobster) and capa longa (razor clam) and especially the superb scampi.

The Venetians are, of course, a maritime people; they had to be, driven as they were from the mainland to Torcello and finally to the 118 islets of Venice by advancing barbarians, and they have long since lost the taste for most meat - except for calf's liver, which they eat in vast quantities, sliced into thin strips, sauteed with onions and served with grilled cornmeal cakes called polenta. The problem is that most of the restaurants that cater to tourists presume that they have to serve meat, anyway, and they don't cook it very well. I'll tell about an exception later, but meanwhile here is a short list of places where tradition is served: Corte Sconta (3886 Castello, Calle del Pestrin; telephone 27024; closed Monday and Tuesday lunch). At the moment, this ''hidden courtyard'' with its factory decor and tables covered with brown paper is the best fish restaurant in town. Scallops cooked with a bit of broth and seasoned with flat parsley, small clams touched with garlic, fresh sardines, tiny octopus - all that and more as a first course. Then a pair of pastas - on a recent occasion, one with cigale, another with fresh anchovies. Then a salad (''our midmeal sorbet,'' said the waiter), then a platter of six or seven fried fish and shellfish. Everything is fresh, light, understated and washed down with prosecco, an undeservedly little-known white wine from near Treviso, which comes in sparkling and still versions. Da Fiore (2202 San Polo, Calle del Scalater; telephone 27024; closed Sunday, Monday, August and Christmas). Tucked away in a small street not far from the Frari, Fiore is a sober bourgeois place that is only now beginning to be discovered by foreigners. Good oysters, which are a rarity in Venice, and excellent risottos, especially those made with radiccio. The goal here is quality, not flash, so the selection may be limited. They make their own bread. First-rate service. Antica Bessetta (1395 Santa Croce, Salizzada Zusto; telephone 37687; closed Tuesday and Wednesday). This place is impossible to find, so have the concierge draw you a map; if he doesn't know it, help him along by telling him that it is near San Giacomo dell'Orio. Nereo Volpe works in the plain front room, his wife, Maurizia, in the back. He is the menu (as well as the producer of the two fine house wines) so pay attention to his advice. Among the memorable dishes she cooks from time to time are tagliatelle with asparagus, fabulous fried soft-shell crabs and razor clams in a gentle, herby broth. Madonna (594 San Polo, Calle della Madonna; telephone 23624; closed Wednesday and January). Unlike the others on my list, the Madonna is known to almost everybody. Sometimes the pasta is overcooked, though never the risotto di pesce and never the grilled fish. Order that, and enjoy the scenery, because the Madonna is the heart and soul of Venice. The interconnecting dining rooms are always full of laughing, gesticulating, fast-talking people and teasing, hustling, smiling waiters. Near the ''far'' side of the Rialto bridge. La Furatola (2870A Dorsoduro, Calle Lunga San Barnaba; telephone 708594; no dinner served Wednesday, closed Thursday and July). Cheerful and inexpensive, this trattoria grills fish as well as any in Venice. Bruno and Sandro, the owners, have a reputation among their peers as canny men at the market, which has a lot to do with the quality of what they put on your plate. Good house white wine.

Now for the exception. When - if - you get tired of fish, head for Da Ivo (1809 San Marco, Calle dei Fuseri; telephone 705889; closed Sunday and January), a pretty little place with gondolas passing by the windows in the canal that runs along one wall. The chef is a master of that Florentine delight, the bistecca, a huge and juicy T-bone steak. Preceded perhaps by crostini (rough croutons spread with anchovy paste and chicken livers), ordered rare, squirted with lemon, it will calm the carnivore in you sufficiently to permit a return to the typical briny fare of this noble city that was once a country.

Photo of scene outside Harry's Dolci; Map

Book FlightsBook A HotelRent A CarBook A CruiseBook A PackageBook An Activity